Two hundred meters above the sweltering heat of the Prieska airfield, Beau Basson is sweating. HeÂ’d released off the winch, into what he thought was a thermal, a declared world distance record beckoning. But things arenÂ’t going so well. He is still low, with no end in sight for his miserable climb rate.

Peter Wild flies the north face of the Eiger

In the early 1960s, the USA and USSR were fully engaged in a race to get the first man on the moon. David Barish, an American aeronautical engineer, invented a new parachute for bringing spacecraft gently back to earth. He tested his new wing shape by self-launching, and was so excited by its possibilities that he set off round the ski resorts of the USA demonstrating his newly found summer sport. During research that has spanned twelve years and three continents, Xavier Murillo has discovered the true birth date of paragliding - 1965 - and went to talk to the man that started it all.